Discovering Shangri-La
by IRiSEaGLes
Summary: Written for The Houses Competition. He was left broken hearted. He now is on a trek to discover the means to move on.


Alone in a cafe in the outskirts of Calcutta, he sits and reminisces over the past few weeks as the monsoonal rain tampers on the glass that blurs his sight to the outside world; that world he is currently trying to escape from, that world that has brought him nothing but pain. He has been on a journey of personal introspective discovery after she left him, practically on his knees.

Two weeks prior, he had proposed to his eburnean beauty; her hair as pale as the tusks of the elephants they had been riding through the country, her skin barely tinted from the sun. She looked around in awe at the world surrounding them at that time, and this only made him joyous and hopeful for a positive change in his life.

In front of an ancient magical temple, one that lead to the fantastic world that Muggles know as Shangri-La, he went down on a knee and gave her his heart. He asked her to marry him.

And she turned him down. Not just turned him down, she laughed at him, turned and fled, her eburnean hair flowing behind her, like it was an insult to her own being that he proposed to her in the first place.

Since then, Theodore Nott had been trying to find himself. Find what he did wrong. Find what he can do to recover. Find how to move on from her. Find how to love again.

He has yet to speak her name, because just the sound of the letters as they merge together in an angelic form only breaks him over and over again.

Now he has been wandering the world, both magical and muggle, to discover how to move on.

It first brought him to a temple outside Mount Fuji in Japan, since he had to get as far away as he could from his heartbreak. He spent hours upon hours listening to nature and the world around him as he tried to discover his own peace and harmony. He listened for the words of wisdom that are spread upon the winds as they blow through the elaborate flags that line the hallways and the trees that surround this bastion of harmony. He listened for guidance from the raindrops on the glass that opened to the outside world. He emerged after a time, who knows the passage of time in a place where it seems to stand still, from the temple with not much more than sore knees and a still aching heart.

He went to Vietnam, where he saw the calm smaragdine waves as the wind blows across the rice patties. He ate the fresh eburnean rice from the gentle farmers, but he could not bring himself to look onto it for the memories that it invoked. The mountain trails that he hiked, and the kind faces that greeted him on his path, gave him hope that this would be where his heart repaired itself. His travels through a countryside that was riddled with the remnants of war taught him what true desperation and hurt was. Alas, it did not heal his own pain.

He traveled into Australia and toured the outback with its deep reds, golds, and sarcolines for as far as the eye could see. The sun would blaze down on him and the environment that seemed to hold little life, but he learned through his wanderings that there was life to be found in the most desolate and harsh environments. There was little to break up the atmosphere and it made him feel small and insignificant. He hoped that his turbulent heart could be left in the vast alive emptiness that is the oxymoron that is the Australian outback.

His heart remained in his chest, broken but still beating. It forced him to move on and seek more, discover the one thing that could hopefully bring him back from this painful mere existence. It forced his lungs to breathe, his feet to move, his eyes to see the beauty and vibrancy that surrounded him.

He returned to where their trek began, here in Calcutta, where he had last seen the woman. He decided that the only way to make a clean break is to come back to where it began and close the wound. The raindrops on the glass gave him hope that they would wash away his despair and allow him to discover a road to heal.

That morning he was prepared to make way to the temple where his pain would be greatest, to try and discover something - anything - that could bring him back from the abyss that was the hole in his heart.

How could one beauty cause such internal destruction? Every night he still awoke to the memory of her eburnean hair blowing in the wind as it was tied up in a loose ponytail on the beginning of their holiday. The holiday that was to be the beginning of a life together.

This storm brought a new destiny for him today; instead of traveling to discover a way to heal his ache, he only can watch and listen as the raindrops trail down on the glass of the cafe. Today's introspection will be carried over a cup of strong chai instead of at the gates of his nirvana.

The next morning was much of the same, the same raindrops continued to pound on the glass of his hotel room and yet he decides to take the challenge himself, alone, because that is the way that he will face the world from here on out.

He will not have his eburnean beauty at his side. He will give up that dream and discover his own, new path.

He arrived at the gates of the temple, the same temple that he kneeled before her and plead to be her only love, the same place he was rejected and dejected. He approached pensively, looking ahead, not to the right where his knees found the ground and as she turned away, they seemed to be permanently indented. No, he passed the brilliant gates, banners of a multitude of colors flying in the frightful wind. At this point he doesn't recall how he arrived at the gates, he didn't apparate and the roads were much too treacherous to travel, but he strides past the gates that are open for him today - unlike the day that he asked her to wed. He sees this as a open invitation to discover the mystic peace that could be found within, and hopefully impart some of that insight to him.

He left the temple unknowing how long had past, time was irrelevant. What was important was the discoveries that he found within the sacred walls. He did not want to leave, but his status as the head of the Noble House of Nott made him return to a reality that he did not recognize.

He landed in the British Ministry of Magic hours later, to concerned and confused looks. He had notified some of his closest associates that he would be returning home, so when his cerulean blue eyes landed upon two of his closest friends with no recognition, he realized that his road to self discovery must have been complete. He was not the same man that left: then he was happy, falsely happy. Since then he became a broken shell of a man and discovered how to heal.

Now he is truly happy. A joy that comes from within by being true to yourself, instead of doing what is expected and only going through the motions of supposed happiness.

"Gentlemen, it has been a long time." His voice was horse from disuse. He had taken a personal vow of silence while on his road to self discovery. He looked into their vastly different eyes, one light and bright the other dark and menacing, seeing no recognition of his presence. Yes he looked worse for wear, who wouldn't after the sabbatical that he endeavored on. His beard, something he never wore prior, would be down to his shoulders and his dishwater blond hair was near his mid back by now if it were not shaved off regularly. His clothes, his monk-like robes not of the same style as that he left wearing, hung loose on his frame; only showing his comrades the extent of his self-imposed trials.

"Nott?" The two men exclaim in tandem as they both look at their friend in befuddlement.

"Aye. It is good to see you both Malfoy, Zabini," his voice still sounded like ground stones under a carriage.

"You look," the dark skinned wizard - Zabini - looks appraisingly over his mate, "like you haven't seen the sun or a bath in months."

"Honestly, I have seen both. I just have not utilized the bath as much as I would had I been here. Time for me became irrelevant as I discovered what was important in life." He mentally battled over what to divulge to the men in front of him as to what exactly took place.

"Well she came back all haughty and full of herself," the pale aristocrat, Malfoy, explained. "She tried to say that the proposal you came up with was not adequate for someone of her status."

"It doesn't matter. If you desire, you can say her name. I am at peace with the situation." And he was.

The two friends exchanged dumbfounded glances, and Zabini questions further, "What are you not telling us, Nott?"

"That discovering yourself may take you to the most unlikely places, you may meet the most unlikely people, and in my case, fall in love with not only yourself but the world. I don't need to be tied down. I am one and I am happy. That is all that matters." He paused, thinking of what else needed to be said. "I am here to tie up all my assets, loose ends, and anything that may be outstanding and then I shall return. I plan on living the rest of my life in Shangri-La."

He never noticed the raindrops on the glass outside the cafe the night before he returned. He never noticed the sun when it was high when he returned to Calcutta. He only noticed the peace that flowed around him like the waves of eburnean locks that used to draw his attention.

* * *

Author's Notes:

House: Slytherin  
Year: 5  
Theme: Discovery  
Color: Eburnean  
Prompt: Raindrops on the glass  
Word Count: 1726


End file.
